U.S. destroys five Iranian tankers. Iran hits a Jordan base. Brent is $100.

U.S. Central Command said it destroyed five Iranian crude carriers on Tuesday after the Revolutionary Guards twice fired ballistic missiles at a Navy warship. The ship evaded both shots. No American personnel were harmed, the command said. Crews were told to abandon ship before the hulls were struck. Overnight, CENTCOM released video of the Riesco on fire and sinking bow first in the Gulf of Oman. The War desk files the largest single day of tanker destruction in a six-month war, and a number the American reader can feel: Brent printed above $100.

CENTCOM named them. In the Gulf of Oman: the Kaviz, the Charminar, the Horizon 1, the Riesco. Off Kharg Island, the hub for about 90 percent of Iran’s crude exports: the Derya. The command called the ships part of a multibillion-dollar shadow network that funds the IRGC and its proxies. Saturday it had already taken three. Tuesday made eight in four days. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, in Colombia, put the ratio in one sentence: “For every time they do that, or try to do that, they’re going to lose tankers.”

For every time they do that, or try to do that, they’re going to lose tankers.

Tehran answered on a third country. The Guards said they launched a heavy missile strike at Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Azraq, Jordan, a field used by American forces, and fired on ten ships near a “prohibited” stretch of Hormuz — two U.S. vessels and eight tankers, they claimed. Jordan said it intercepted 18 of 20 missiles; two fell in unpopulated ground; no casualties. The IRGC also ordered crews off tankers at Kuwaiti and Bahraini piers. The strait is already a queue: 42 tankers waiting as of Monday, 18 of them laden, about 11 million barrels sitting still.

The tape took the fire. Brent settled Tuesday near $98 and traded through $100 this morning, the first three-figure print in about six weeks. West Texas was in the mid-$90s. AAA’s national average for regular jumped about seven cents overnight to $4.22. Diesel printed $5.94, a record on the American chart. The president has said gasoline will fall when America wins. The gallon does not take dictation. Eight weeks from the midterm, $4.22 is a ballot.

This is day 194. The UUV the Guards said they trapped at the mouth of Hormuz on Tuesday is still a photograph they have not shown; the Pentagon still calls it a malfunction. Qatar says reopening the strait unconditionally is a top priority. The War desk files the morning as it is: five tankers down, one of them on the bottom, a Jordan base under fire, a pump that has not dropped precipitously.